steph kollmer- the little administration that couldnt

Stephanie Kollmer
The Little Administration That Couldn't
March 28, 2008
Middle East Online

ii. summary- This article is talking about how the US Administration is not able to accomplish all that it says it will. It talks about how America's Administration is mostly good at nation-damaging and not fixing the damage. The US said that it would rebuild Iraq after all of the fighting, and they have not yet made an effort to. The author is not surprised by that because after Hurricane Katrina, the American government could not even rebuild an American city. The author thinks that the American economy is decreasing, also because of the government. The Bush Administration is said to be good at only destroying and looting without ever making up for or rebuilding what they damaged.

iii. reactions
a) This article deals with the AP World History theme "interaction among and within major societies." This shows in the article because of the interaction between the US and Iraq and the fact that the US is not rebuilding Iraq. There is also interaction within the US itself because the country's Administration was unable to rebuild New Orleans and is causing the economy to suffer.

b) This article's history has to do with both the War on Terror and the unfortunate event of Hurricane Katrina. The US had said that they would destroy as little of Iraq as possible and that they would fix their damage. This didn't happen, and the Iraqi people are upset that their cities are destroyed. When New Orleans was hit by the hurricane, it was said that the army corps turned the natural disaster into a man-made one. The government was also unable to rebuild the damage that both the troops, and the hurricane caused. The author is blaming the Bush Administration, so the problems must have taken root when Bush took office.

c) The author of the article is probably not an insider on the situation, but is most likely from somewhere in the Middle East since they are writing for "Middle East Online." The fact that the writer is from the Middle East is most likely affecting his point of view.

d) Since the author is from the Middle East, it makes sense that he or she is trashing the US. The writer may even be from Iraq, and may be upset that destroyed cities are not being rebuilt. There is definitely bias being displayed because there is no evidence in the article of the author believing that the US Administration is succeeding in anything. It only reports how and what they are not able to accomplish. He is also most likely an outsider, making it possible that he may not have accurate information.

e) The voice of the US is missing in this article. It is not stated throughout the whole article, and I am sure that the US Administration would not agree with what the author was saying. Obviously the author has a point that the US couldn't rebuild anything that they destroyed, but there probably was a reason that they couldn't. If the US's opinion of the situation was stated, I would have most likely gotten a better understanding of the situation. Also, according to the author, we should all be scared that our economy is being destroyed, which is another issue that the US would probably have thought of differently. I think that the US would have had a different opinion on many of the situations that could help me better understand the issue.

f) I am not really that familiar with how the US Administration works, and since this article only shows one strong opinion towards the subject it is hard for me to decide how I feel about it. I think that it makes sense that the US was unable to rebuild Iraq if they couldn't rebuild New Orleans, but it has got to be hard work to rebuild entire cities. I hope that the US made an effort to try to rebuild them, but I am not sure if they did because the article didn't mention it. It is also scary to think about the possibility that our entire economy is on the verge of collapsing. I think that these are important issues in the world today, but I don't think that this article gives a good synopsis of all of the sides of the situation, making it hard to understand what is going on fully enough to form an opinion about it.